Monday, October 5, 2015

Fantastic Conference Weekend

Area: Kearney, MissouriCompanion: Elder Hansen
Hello!

Yes, Elder Hansen did get his letter from you. He was very appreciative! :-). Thank you so much for doing that. It really lifted his spirits.

What a fantastic conference weekend! We sure did have a great time being with various different families and such this week. The first session on Saturday we spent with a less active named George. That went pretty well and it was good to see what he was able to get out of that session for him. The afternoon session we went and watched up at Bishop Walkers lake house in Altamont, which was amazing! Abigail was there as well and watched both sessions with the Walker family. She seemed to really enjoy what was said. After the session we were able to teach her a lesson and recommit to a few things. She is progressing right along! We then drove to Cameron and watched the priesthood session in the church building there with our Bishop. A missionary with down syndrome wanted to sit with us so we let him right in! About halfway through the session I look over because I hear some whimpering... I see him crying on Elder Hansen's shoulder because his stomach hurt from eating to much ice cream earlier. He kept saying he was going to throw up so Elder Hansen sent him to the bathroom. Haha! That gave us a good chuckle. He was so cute.

On Sunday we watched the morning session with the Bingham family! That is who you got the picture of us from. That family is super cool. One of their daughters has a friend who she always brings to church and she wanted to watch conference. After watching conference we were able to teach her a lesson. Her name is Selena. The lesson went really well and we have a return appointment with her this Thursday! We are excited to see where she will be after a couple of weeks. We then went to the Roberts family home to watch the afternoon session with them and their 4 crazy kids. That family is super fun! We had dinner with them afterward which reminded me of Sunday dinners at home, roast and potatoes! Yum!

So the new apostle, Elder Renlund, came here to the MIM a little while ago so I got to shake his hand and talk to him for awhile at lunch. I loved the way that he presented his messages. It will be great to have him as an apostle.

We had a great zone conference this past week as well! We were just filled with all sorts of spiritual enlightenment this week. President Vest asked myself and Elder Hansen to conduct the meeting. That was a good experience to learn how to do that. President gave an amazing training on the different things we need to put on the altar of sacrifice to become a more consecrated missionary. Any streak of disobedience, fear, romantic passions, pride, negativism or sarcasm, and mediocrity. He truly is an inspired man! I feel like before I came out on a mission I was content with who I was. Now that I am out here I have had time to have a good self examination and have realized that there are a lot of things to work on to become someone much better. Little by little I have been able to work on them, it is great!

I really loved the talks in General conference about mothers. They expressed what a mothers role and what our mothers feel for us in a way that I have never thought of before. I just wanted to express my love to you Mom! I am so grateful for your never ending sacrifice for each one of us boys you and Dad have raised. You are a great example to me of unconditional love and sacrifice. You always know what to say and what to do to make us feel better. I love and appreciate you so much! Proverbs 22:6 :-). "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

That was about all that happened this week!

Love all of you!

Elder Shoemaker

PS: Will you check our supply closet to see if there is an invisible shield for an iPad mini 2? I could use one of those for this baby. Also a case that is conservative and has a cover that flaps over the screen? I would really appreciate that. :-). Thanks!